Follow KPCC

Steinberg says less revenue will equal more cuts

Staff | California Capitol Network

Sen. Abel Maldonado (L) pinches the cheek of Senate President Sen. Darrell Steinberg. Steinberg is now acknowledging that due to lower-than-expected revenues, yet more cuts are likely on the horizon. Max Whittaker/Getty Images

Audio from this story

Share

The leader of the California Senate, Democrat Darrell Steinberg, is acknowledging that disappointing state revenues will force yet another round of deep budget cuts this year.

Steinberg says his party won’t shy away from making those cuts, but that it will search for reductions that cause the least amount of pain.

“We will do what we have to do to balance the budget, but we will do so again in ways that minimize — that attempt, I should say, with an emphasis on attempt to minimize — the impacts to people who are most in need," says Steinberg.

Steinberg spoke on Wednesday as hundreds of parents and their children rallied at the Capitol against a governor-proposed cut of half-a-billion dollars to subsidized child care.

The cuts are a part of his plan to restructure California’s welfare-to-work program known as CalWORKs.

Beckie Moralez of Butte County was a CalWORKs recipient, but now she says she’s been self-sufficient for two years.

“With child care, I was able to go to school, heal myself from an addiction," Moralez says, "Without child care, I would never have had the life that I get to enjoy today. And I believe that every parent and every child has the right to quality child care and a future for their children.”

The state’s estimated $9 billion deficit will almost certainly go up when the governor releases his updated budget proposal later this month.